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Every year there is a new 'Prince Carnival' with his 'Council of Eleven', every year there is again a crazy new carnival song, that you can hear being sung and played everywhere, and naturally, you sing and dance with complete strangers, all together, in some costume or other, in the streets, in the inns which have been completely cleared for the occasion, except for the beer taps. Out of one hostelry, into the next. Music resounds through the streets, it rains kisses in the many cosy, warm pubs around 'the Vrijthof' and other proper area's of Maastricht, you dance, you sing, you do what you like, you flutter like a butterfly. You are gypsy or princess, potbelly stove or lampshade, and you are...yourself. You discover the reason in the nonsense.
 


One of the many peculiarities which add colour to carnival, is the well-known carnival greeting: 'alaaf'. Not with the right hand to the right side of the forehead, as is customary, but with the top of the right hand to the left temple. Possibly a then-parody of the strong militarism of the Prussians - a so-called alternative greeting, or a pointer to the number 11. The fools number par excellence, which regulary appears in the carnivalesque events: -the Council of Eleven; -on the 11th of the 11th month the carnival season is commenced with celebrations, the Council of Eleven is meeting first time; -eleven is an evil number, it exceeds the ten commandments.

And then there are the masks and the disguises. The present meaning of those must be found in the temporary escape of normal life. This one causes to happen by climbing into another skin. One sometimes calls clothing people's social outer skin. Well now, this outer skin one changes for a certain period. From a disguised carnivalist one can expect anything. Their actions are no longer predictable, but noone is concerned about it. Carnival is a living people's entertainment, that, in spite of the obstacles of the past and now, still exists. Was Petrus Canisius right when in 1572 he wrote: "Carnival, in my opinion, cannot be abolished by king or emperor"?

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